


the dying of the light

by nefelokokkygia



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark!Sif, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 14:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5501927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nefelokokkygia/pseuds/nefelokokkygia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>do not go gentle into that good night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the dying of the light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade/gifts).



> GUESS WHO
> 
> (also i imagine sif's dad as thorin, but your mileage may vary)

_do not go gentle into that good night,_  
_old age should burn and rave at close of day_  
_rage, rage against the dying of the light_

 

Sif has learned many things upon her father's knee, but the one she remembers most is power.

She had been young and knobby-kneed when he (finally, _finally_ ) gave her her first practice sword and told her to swing it, her hair dark and long and sticking to her skin from the sweat that drips down her jaw. Her father was tall and his shadow consumed her as she spat blood from her teeth and curled her fingers in the sand and rocks beneath her, and when Sif looked up at him his face was hidden by the sun that shone behind him. The gold and glory of Ásgarðr burned behind her eyes and in the scrapes and cuts that prickled her palms, and she hauled herself to her feet, brandishing the wooden sword again.

 _This will be your first lesson_ , he had told her when she faced him for the first time, her stance mimicking his own, her feet not far enough apart, her knees unbent, not yet honed. It took only seconds for him to knock the wooden blade from her hand, and just as quickly as he had sent her to the ground he yanked her back to her feet.

_No matter how many times you fall, you must always get up._

She doesn't land a hit that first day, but she does learn to bend her knees and hold her feet steady.

(She doesn't need to learn to defend herself, she's been doing that since the day she told her mother she wanted to become a warrior, one of her father's _Einherjar_ , and her mother wept as her father's eyes burned gold.)

  
*

  
The first time her mother convinces her to attend one of the feasts held in the palace, she acquiesces to jewels and chiffon, wearing rubies around her neck like blood and a trail of fabric that follows her like wolves and their whispers as she walks.

Her father is a captain of the _Einherjar_ and such formalities are not unknown to her, but Sif would rather leather and gold adorned her throat and her hair tied into a ponytail rather than all these intricate knots, but her father makes up for it by asking her what she thinks of the nobility that surrounds them.

"Pigs," the warrior-in-training replies, her eyes narrowed and slick with lines of kohl. "The lot of them." Her father points to a particularly fat one, covered in gaudy velvet and far too into his cups to notice his own drunkenness as he laughs with those gathered around him.

"How do you think that one fights?" he asks her, his fingers twirling a lock of his long hair, streaked with gray and dotted with braids; it's how she knows he's utterly bored out of his mind, and Sif laughs inwardly at how much her mother despises that her daughter learned it as well.

"Fights? He can barely stand up, let alone move," she scoffs, eyeing the scabbard at his hip. "That sword is purely for show."

"Oh absolutely," her father agrees, taking a slow sip of his mead, unlike most of the other attendants. "But humor me, how would you do it?"

"It wouldn't take much," Sif smirks. "I would wait for him to launch himself at me and let gravity do the rest." Her father slaps her on the back, laughing, and she snickers into her own cup.

"And what about them?" he suggests, pointing towards the far end of the hall, and Sif almost loses her grip on the goblet in her hand. "How would you fight them?"

"The princes?" she asks, eyeing the pair of adolescents seated with the Queen and her aides.  
  
Sif is silent for a few moments, observing them, taking them in. Thórr is built like a boulder and swings his goblet around as if it were a toy as he tells some fantastic tale, and she knows as all of Ásgarðr knows that he will one day inherit _Mjolnir_ before he becomes king.

Loki, however, is the complete opposite of his brother, thin and slick like a cat, his green eyes like chips of ice and the lines of his cheeks shadowed and pale. If she didn't know any better, she would not think of them to be brothers at all. Something about him captivates her in a way the blond does not, and her father nudges her out of her daze.

"You're staring."

"Am not," she huffs, hiding the pink of her cheeks in her cup as she drinks. "I was observing."

"I'll let you believe that," he replies, getting up from the long table, attempting to find her mother amidst the cacophony of the feast.

Sif can't help that her eyes flicker back to Loki after her father leaves, and it isn't until his gaze shifts from his mother and catches the young warrior's for a moment that she has the courage to look away.

  
*

  
Sif never does get to tell him how she would fight the princes, and she doesn't remember he had asked until a member of the _Einherjar_ comes to their door months later and tells her mother that her father is dead, killed by a swathe of insurgents on _Vanaheimr, Jǫtnar_ among them.

Her mother collapses into tears, and Sif runs.

She runs to the training grounds close by, kicking up dirt and dust as pebbles dig unnoticed into the soles of her bare feet. No one is around in the middle of the night to see her, eyes red and wide and weary as she yanks one of the training blades from the rack and hacks at a dummy until it is nothing but a heap of straw and splintered pieces of wood. The warrior-in-training swings and slashes until she can move no more, until sweat stings her eyes instead of tears and her muscles burn from the strain, her nightgown torn and dirty and her hair matted with dust.

She had known this day would come, knew it was inevitable that one day her father would leave in his golden armor and braids and never come back. Such is the fate of most who take up the sword for Ásgarðr, and now she understands why her mother wept and her father's eyes burned when she told them she wanted to do the same.

 _One day I will go to battle and not return_ , he had told her, the night she asked to be trained as a warrior, to trade the clinking of her mother's jewels and silks for leather and gold and the sharp ring of metal in her ears. _It is the highest honor to become an_ Einherji, _but if you live for Ásgarðr, that is how you will die, and the Great_ Móðir _will take you when Ásgarðr can no longer lead you_.

( _I want you to remember this when you are crowned in gold and blood and the world is at your feet_ , her father told her, and she could see the gray streaks in his hair and the fire in his eyes, and when it burned her, she did not flinch.)

Her father is ash in her mouth and her mother not long without him on the day she takes the only remaining armor to his name to the metalsmiths that made it for him.

"I am Týsdóttir, and this was once his. Melt it down and remake it in my image, for I have more need of it than him."

 

 _though wise men at their end know dark is right_  
_because their words had forked no lightning they_  
_do not go gentle into that good night_

  
Sif spits blood from her teeth and wipes it from her nose, the pool of red ugly and raw on the dirt of the training grounds. Sweat stings the cuts at the edges of her armor and there is grit and dirt in her mouth, prickling in her eyes and matted in her messy ponytail. She pushes herself to her feet, digging the heels of her boots into the sandy surface and brandishing her glaive. Her opponent is much larger and heavier than she is, but she remembers the drunken fool at her first feast, her father's laugh burned into her mind, and she strikes.

The warrior raises her weapon over her head as if to hit from above, but at the last second she dives towards the ground, rolling past her opponent's upward swing and using her glaive to help gravity trip him, leaping to her feet as he falls and aiming the blade straight for his neck before he can roll away.

"Well done, Sif," he smiles, chest heaving and clothes covered in dirt and dust, and she laughs as she pulls Thórr to his feet. He gives her a congratulatory pat on the back, which from him is more like a beating, and she elbows him in the side in return. "I wasn't expecting you to be so sneaky."

"Never expect anything from me, and you'll never be surprised," Sif snickers, pulling the tie from her hair and combing her fingers through the mess.

"You sound like my _bróðir_ ," Thórr rolls his eyes, dusting off his clothes. "You should challenge him, maybe you'll get along, be devious together."

The shieldmaiden smirks, grabbing a cloth from one of the nearby racks and beginning to wipe down her weapon, her eyes flickering up to the balcony above them where she can see the dark-haired prince looking out over the grounds, his conversation with the Queen not quite enough to reach her ears.

"I've had my share of words with him," and Sif raises her voice just enough for it to carry to the balcony over the sounds of training recruits. "But I cannot challenge him unless he comes down from his perch to accept it."

At her words Loki turns, his hair slick and soft at his high collar, the gold adornments of his leathers glimmering in the sunset like fire, and his icy eyes meet her own. There is mischief and magick in his gaze, something dark, and Sif curls her toes in her boots, tongue flicking over her teeth.

  
*

  
The next time Sif sets foot on the grounds, there is someone waiting for her, and her laughter is like stars, crushed in her mouth, her sword dangling between her fingers.

"I knew you couldn't resist a challenge, Silvertongue," she says, and Loki does not flinch at the name. (Everyone in the court has known him by one name or another, but Sif prefers this one because she has a feeling he lives up to it in exactly the right way.)

"You know me too well," he replies, and his eyes narrow, the glitter of magick flickering in their depths and a pair of daggers in his hand, and Sif walks to meet him in the fighters' circle, twirling her sword with practiced ease. All eyes are on them, she notices and knows he does too; it isn't often the Trickster makes an appearance on the grounds, preferring to hone his skills at the Queen's hand, and Sif drinks in the attention like water for a dying man in one of _Vanaheimr_ 's deserts.

"Oh not _nearly_ as well as I could," the warrior says, and she makes the first move.

Fighting Loki is like fighting a current, a rushing rapid of magick and sleight-of-hand. Every time she thinks she can land a blow he slips between her fingers, her sword slashing at air or cutting harmlessly into the dirt and she leaps and rolls to avoid one of his daggers or the crackle of his magick in her ears. It's invigorating, intoxicating, and neither is sure how much time passes, only that Sif hasn't had a fight last this long in ages and Loki is impressed at how fast she can dig her heels into the ground and turn her weapon on him again.

His daggers are stronger than she at first gave them credit for, deflecting her sword almost too easily and she wonders if she can taste his magick on them too when they come for her neck. There is sweat in her eyes and dirt matted in her hair, blood dripping down her jaw from where he's managed to nick her cheek and nothing has ever made her feel more alive than this. Loki's breath is hard and fast and one of his brows is bloodied from one of Sif's swipes with her hand, his magick lightning and verdant around them as they move, whirling around each other as they take the world with them.

Sif launches herself at the Trickster, slamming him to the ground and rolling on top of him, the tip of her sword stabbed into the ground beside his jugular, one of his arms outstretched, the edge of a dagger aligned with the curve of her jaw.

Both of them are panting and slick with sweat and dirt, and Loki's pupils are cat-like and thin when blood drips from Sif's chin and pools in the space between his collarbones, the high collar of his leathers wrinkled and undone in just the right way. The shieldmaiden does not miss the way his breath hitches or the glimmering points of his houndteeth as he lies beneath her, the silver blade still pressed to her throat. She laughs, harsh and clipped as she bends her head to whisper in his ear, her words for him only.

"Come to my chambers after the sun has set," she breathes. "I would have more than words with you, this time."

"Is that also a challenge?"

"Is it?"

Sif pushes herself to her feet, leaving Loki with a twisted grin, yanking her sword from the worn ground of the circle, and she leaves the stunned onlookers in the dust at her heels.

(It is, and he rises to it _beautifully_.)

 

 _good men, the last wave by, crying how bright_  
_their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay_  
_rage, rage against the dying of the light_

 

Loki has always been jealous of Thórr, this Sif knows and has always known, and in some ways, she shares it, like anyone who stands in the shadow of others for a little too long.

(The whispers of the court and the glances of her fellow, _male_ recruits do not go unnoticed, never have, and some day she will show them all, yes, all of them, and her father's words echo behind her eyes, but she will not let all of this be for nothing.)

The prince's coronation has not yet been announced but both of them know it draws nearer and nearer, and with each day that passes his younger brother's ire grows, festers within him like a disease, and Sif wonders if she is tangled up with him enough to catch it herself.

" _Móðir_ has asked me to be his adviser, and were it not for her I would have said no a hundred years ago," Loki grumbles, his face buried in her hair and his hand dangling over her hip as they lie in his furs together.

"For his younger _bróðir_ , you do an awful lot of the talking as it is," the warrior says, running her nails up and down his arm, occasionally biting them into his skin and feeling him flinch.

"I am not his keeper," the Silvertongue growls, and Sif turns to face him, carding her hands through his thick black hair, for once unkempt and undone, faint shadows dusted under his eyes and the curve of his jaw thin and sharp. She loves him like this, messy and tousled and liquid in her hands, malleable beneath her touch.

"What about his _babysitter_?" she teases, and he huffs, throwing the covers over her face and sitting up, a hand to his forehead.

"You are _not_ helping," he says, and Sif laughs in response, the sound like a sword through his side, vigorous and angry.

"You know I cannot. I am to become an _Einherji_ in a few weeks' time, and if Thórr is to be my king, I must serve him and Ásgarðr with the utmost loyalty," Sif reminds him, but her words do not reach her eyes, and Loki sees.

"The _Alföðr_ will give you dominion over War," the Silvertongue continues. "What will you do with it?"

(Her father's warning is bright and blinding behind her eyes, _if you live for Ásgarðr, that is how you will die_ , but Sif knows there is no greater honor than the world at her feet, blood in her mouth and Death at her heels.)

"I will _live_."

  
*

  
Thórr's coronation inevitably comes, and so too does the beginning of the end.

When the _Jǫtnar_ come for the Casket, Sif seethes; she had heard stories of the foul creatures upon her father's knee like any child of Ásgarðr, and she bears a special grudge against them for his death. Thórr defies the _Alföðr_ 's orders, tells her and his brother and the Warriors Three that he will go to _Jötunheimr_ , and something in the back of Sif's mind nips behind her eyes, claws at the back of her throat.

(This is everything she shouldn't be doing, oh _Móðir_ Yggdrasill the king could have her head on a silver platter for this, strip her of her dominion and toss her in a cell to rot for an eternity. But Loki's words flicker between her teeth, _reckless_ and _brash_ and _foolhardy_ and _not yet fit to be king_ , and in the elder prince she sees everything that could ever come undone at the seams.)

So she follows him to _Jötunheimr_ , like his brother does, like they all do, and when Loki guards her back with his magick and his footsteps follow her own she does not speak of it, only watches for the monsters watching him, cutting down every one in their path. Jotun blood burns icy hot in her eyes and clings to her teeth, Death nips at her heels and festers inside the bodies she leaves behind, and this, this is the power of War.

And War it will be when Thórr finds Laufey-King upon his forgotten throne, and Sif cannot deny that the taste of it on her tongue does not make her hungry for more.

The _Alföðr_ comes, and in the blink of an eye, Thórr is gone.

  
*

  
"I had no idea _Faðir_ would do what he did," Loki says, pacing the bedroom of her quarters, his hands folded behind his back and the lines of his shoulders taut in the firelight. "It's a wonder any of us weren't banished to Miðgarðr along with him."

"There was no reasoning with your _bróðir_ ; he is stubborn as an ox," Sif reminds him, stripping off the pieces of her armor and letting her leathers slip from her skin. "Thórr would have gone to _Jötunheimr_ with or without us; there was nothing any of us could have done to change what happened."

"Oh there was _so_ much I could have done," Loki laughs, harsh and angry in his throat, turning away from her, and Sif tilts her head, eyes narrowed, curious.

"But you didn't."

"And yet I have," the Silvetongue finishes, facing her again, and suddenly the pieces fall into place.

"You let them in," Sif breathes, moving towards to him, letting the last of her clothes slide from her hand to the floor, inching closer like a predator on the hunt. There is something in his eyes that might be akin to fear, and it eats her up from the inside like blood and Death and everything she has ever wanted at her feet. "You let the _Jǫtnar_ into Ásgarðr and led them to the Casket."

"The _Alföðr_ would have my life for this," Loki whispers, his face only inches from hers, and her hand slides beneath his jaw, cradling it in her palm, her thumb brushing over the sharp bones of his cheek.

"I will keep it in his stead," Sif tells him, pressing her mouth to his, nipping at the soft skin of his bottom lip, and he hisses against her teeth when she draws blood, the taste like fire and steel on her tongue, like his magick down her throat, the waters of the Great _Móðir_ vibrant in her belly.

"You would do this for me?" Loki asks, fisting a hand in her hair and digging his nails into her scalp the way he knows she loves, rough and ragged and like there is nothing else in the Nine Realms that will keep him in one piece.

"Not for _you_ ," she smiles, backing him towards the wall, shoving his hands to either side of his head, pressing her teeth to the place where his neck meets his jaw, leaving bruises like watercolor, marking him, a constant reminder of his secret spun like silk between her fingers. Her father's words tear at her insides and flicker in the spaces of her ribs, but she lets them slide down her stomach, in the space between her legs where Loki's hand now rests, and they pool forgotten on the marbled floor beneath them both.

 _Oh_ Faðir _, if you did not want me to know power, you should never have let me taste it._

  
*

  
He comes to her in a fury after the _Alföðr_ succumbs to the Óðinn-sleep; there are tear-marks beneath his eyes and his magick is a violent thing, hissing and crackling between his fingers and glittering in his eyes, his pupils cat-thin and his houndteeth bared.

"I am no son of Óðinn," the Trickster spits, and if Sif didn't already know she could take him down bare-handed she would have touched her fingers to the sword at her side. "You've been laying with a monster all this time."

"What do you mean?"

"I am one of _them_ , Sif," he seethes. "A runt of the _Jǫtnar_ , Liar-tongue and Laufeyson, the monster parents tell their children about at night."

He tells her everything, and when he is done the weight of another secret drapes over Sif's shoulders like fine fur and velvet and it holds her in, the fire inside her burning even hotter.

"And now with Thórr gone, I am to be King in his stead," Loki finishes, exhausted and eyes red-rimmed as Sif takes him in, everything she never could have imagined and nothing she could ever have dreamed. Sif does not miss the way he no longer calls Thórr _bróðir_ , but he is fragile enough as it is, and she keeps her mouth shut.

"Shall I keep this secret as well?" Sif asks, although it isn't really a question because she already knows the answer.

"You must," he replies; she might even call it pleading, but Loki is too proud, and she is not so reckless. "If Ásgarðr knew the Queen put a _Jötunn_ on the throne, there would be far more than Hel to pay."

"Oh there already is," Sif assures him, her hand trailing down the front of his leathers, over the gold adornments, her nails scratching over the shining surface. "My _Faðir_ was killed by the _Jǫtnar_ , and for that I, nor any of Ásgarðr, could ever forgive them."

"I know," Loki breathes, his gaze passing from her hand on his chest to the fire in her eyes, hesitant. "Why would you tell me this again?"

"I have enough of your secrets," the shieldmaiden replies. "It's time you have one of mine."

  
*

  
The next morning Loki is crowned Prince regent of Ásgarðr, and when Frigg places _Gungnir_ in his hands there if fire and ice in his eyes, the waters of Yggdrasill vibrant in his throat and liquid down his spine. The is everything her has ever wanted and never prepared himself for, and now the weight of the staff is like a Realm upon his shoulders, drawing him down like armor whose pieces don't quite fit together. it leaves him open, digs into the spaces of his ribs, and Sif can see all the places she could break him if she tried.

(And _oh_ she could break him, each one of his secrets like a dagger through his heart, through his head; and sometimes she wonders what would happen if she drove them in just a little bit further, tore into him a little bit deeper, and that kind of power is dangerous between her fingers, raw upon her teeth.)

Loki calls her and the Warriors Three to the throne room, and his golden horns flicker in the firelight like a mirage, crowning him a stag, and how Sif wishes to hunt him to his ends and tear him apart at the seams.

The _Alföðr_ did indeed decree that the Bifrost remain closed to prevent any further threats to Ásgarðr, but Loki is King until Óðinn awakens, he can do what he wants, and his decision to keep it that way makes Sif tilt up the corner of her mouth, unseen by her steadfast comrades and visible only to the Silvertongue seated before her. _He is like a caged animal, all claws and teeth and hackles raised_ , she thinks. _Ásgarðr is a gilded, glorious cage, and he has locked himself and his demons inside_.

Loki dismisses all but the warrior, and if Fandral and the others let their eyes linger on the Shieldmaiden and the Silvertongue for a few moments longer, neither of them pay it any mind. The guards leave them as well, in the silence of firelight and gold.

"The Bifröst will remain closed?" Sif parrots, repeating his earlier words, making her way up to the dais of the throne. "The only reason the _Jǫtnar_ ever set foot on this Realm at all was because of you; _Jötunheimr_ has posed no real threat in over a thousand years, so what is it you are afraid of?"

"I am not afraid of anything," the horned God growls, low and dark in his throat, and Sif laughs, at the edge of the steps leading to the throne. "I merely want to keep anything...," and he pauses, meeting her eyes, "... _untoward_ from getting out." Sif catches the double meaning of his words and her fingers play at the hilt of her sword at her side.

"Oh I don't think you have to worry about anything getting out," she breathes, a harsh laugh liquid in her throat. "You don't want something getting back in. Or rather, some _one_."

"I do not fear Thórr and I will not fear him if he returns," the Silvertongue seethes, and the shimmer of it is beginning to dull, his words strangled in his throat. "Óðinn sleeps, and I am on the throne now."

"And don't forget who put you there, _Serpent_ -tongue," Sif growls between her teeth, the hair on the back of her neck bristling with anger as she stalks up the steps of the dais, the sharp _clack_ of her boots echoing in the wide, empty chamber.

"My birthright put me on the throne," Loki counters, and he stands up from the golden chair, head tilted forward and the horns of his helm brandished like a weapon, but Sif is a huntress, and she has no fear of her prey.

"And I am the one who keeps you there," the warrior hisses, having reached the top of the steps, her eyes level with Loki's own. "I keep your secrets, you keep your kingdom." She runs a hand down the plate of silver and gold over his chest, shoving him down to the throne with a single push, and she straddles him with practiced ease.

 

 _wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight_  
_and learn, too late, they grieved it on its way_  
_do not go gentle into that good night_

 

 _Jötunheimr_ is dark and vast, frozen like the far reaches of space beyond Ásgarðr's atmosphere, strung out along the edges of Yggdrasill's hold. When she came here with Thórr and the others, the snow cut her to her core, ice creaking between the bones of her spine and the spaces of her toes, sending shivers through her skin. Now she is numb to the chill, and she wonders if it is because she has grown too close to Loki, who is ice and the waters of the Great _Móðir_ made man, and he has touched her heart so deeply that it has become so much like his.

They bargain with Laufey-King for Óðinn's life, offering the Casket in return, and it takes all of Sif's strength to hide her laughter at how easily he eats out of Loki's palm. She supposes it is because the _Jǫtnar_ have had nothing left to lose for far too long, and the throne of ice that Laufey sits upon is hollow in the empty light of the few stars above them that shimmer through the thick clouds and gusts of snow.

She says nothing during the entire exchange, only guarding Loki's back as she had done here before. She silently watches each of the _Jötunn_ leader's guards, and she thinks of her father in the great hall of the palace, lifetimes ago, and the warrior maps out how she would kill each of them where they stood.

 _Oh if_ Faðir _could see me now_ , Sif thinks. _And how he would weep with_ Móðir _if he knew what I have become_.

  
*

  
That night in the warriors' chambers she listens to Fandral and Hogun as they discuss Thórr's disappearance and Loki's ascension to the throne.

"He's always been jealous of Thórr," Sif sighs, polishing the blade of her glaive, buffing away any last traces of the _Jötunn_ blood that coated it only hours before.

"And now that the Queen has made him Prince regent in the king's and Thórr's convenient absence, he suddenly has everything he's ever wanted and more," Fandral says, absently rubbing at the bandaged wound beneath his leathers, his reminder of _Jötunheimr_ still scarring his skin.

"You don't think he planned this somehow, do you?" Volstagg questions, helping himself to a bowl of fruit on one of the tables. "Getting Thórr in trouble, weaseling his way to the throne?"

"Loki is cunning, but he is not a traitor," Hogun says, and Fandral turns around as if he had forgotten the curt warrior was even in the room with them. "He doesn't have it in him."

"The Lady Sif would know all about that, wouldn't she?" Volstagg laughs, and Sif tilts her glaive forward as if to inspect it, the blade pointing conveniently in the large warrior's direction.

"She would?" Fandral asks, his head tilted in confusion, and Volstagg plops a large pear from the plate in the blond's hand, surprising him.

"She knows Loki, though probably not as much as you know half the women in this Realm."

"Slut," Hogun calls from the far couch, and Sif almost drops her glaive from laughter.

"I'll have you know I'm very proud of that title," Fandral retorts. "But in all seriousness, have you noticed anything different in him, Sif?"

"Aside from the burden of rule, nothing that I can think of," and Loki's glittering eyes and white-hot houndteeth flicker behind her eyes, _Gungnir_ like lead in his hands.

"Well I don't like it," the blond warrior huffs, sitting up from the couch, tossing the pear back onto Volstagg's plate. "In all our concern for Loki, we seem to have forgotten about Thórr, and I for one want to know where he is. I'll beat Heimdallr into opening the Bifröst if I have to."

"There is no Loki without Thórr," Sif says, almost to her herself more than any of the others, and she snaps the blades of her glaive back into place.

"Will you come with us?" Volstagg asks.

"Someone has to keep an eye on Loki," Sif replies. "You three are more than capable of bringing Thórr home."

And with that she turns and makes her way to the inner chambers of the palace, where Loki is, and the shieldmaiden can feel their eyes like fire upon her back, but the ice has reached so far into her spine that there is nothing that can burn her now.

  
*

  
"They are headed for Miðgarðr ," Sif warns Loki, but the news does not disturb the calm expression on the Silvertongue's face. Only moments after her words, the glow of the Bifröst lights up its place on Ásgarðr's edge, and his brow furrows, but nothing more.

"Let them," he says, turning his back on the balcony, the green velvet of his cape dusting along the marbled floor. "I have what I want."

"Is this really what you want, Loki?" Sif questions, and the Trickster pauses, _Gungnir_ in his hand, his cape shimmering in the light of the fire in the hearth.

"I have the throne, and now I will have my revenge, on the _Faðir_ that abandoned me and the one that betrayed me," Loki answers, the words chalked up and dirty between his teeth. "I will show them all what I am capable of."

"And what will you do if they do find him?"

"I am sending the Destroyer after them, to make sure they don't."

"Murderers don't make good kings," Sif replies, sheathing her last dagger in her boot, but the response is an empty one, only testing his wit.

"But kings make the best of murderers," the horned God counters, and Sif does not challenge him, following him through the door, towards the catacombs of the vault, and the Casket below.

(Sif wonders why it is called the Casket, as if it carries Death within its core and promises such to those who wield it, and perhaps that is its true purpose, as she watches Loki lift it from its pedestal, the glimmering glow of blue snaking up his hands. Perhaps that is why _Jötunheimr_ was destined to fall, and when the red of his blood enters Loki's eyes, she sees the Branches leading him to the same fate. She wonders if he can see them in her own eyes too.)

 

*

  
It isn't long before Loki leads the _Jǫtnar_ and Laufey-King to Óðinn 's chambers, and Sif smiles as the _Jǫtnar_ enter the small, lamp-lit room. She whips her glaive from its holster on her back, guarding Frigg as the creatures encircle her, watching Laufey as he climbs the dais to the sleeping king.

(Long ago she would have thought _her king_ , but Loki is king now, and he is hers, and there are far thicker things than blood that bind them now.)

"Betraying one _Faðir_ for another," Loki laughs, aiming _Gungnir_ at Laufey. "I really am a monster after all."

Loki's words enrage the _Jötunn_ leader, the dawn of understanding lighting his red eyes for only seconds before the blast from the staff burns them away, and Sif howls for blood, launching herself at the underlings still left.

She carries out each of their deaths as swiftly as she had planned them on _Jötunheimr_ only a sunrise ago, her fury echoing like wolves in her ears, blood rushing in her veins and splattering in her eyes, and each of her strikes is like judgment, and she is Queen. Death nips at her heels and buries itself deep in the bodies she leaves it, her Dominion beats in her heart like the drums of War and if this is what it means to be crowned in blood and gold, then _Móðir_ Yggdrasill and all the Nine are at her feet.

Until Thórr returns, the red of his cape like a wound against the golden walls, and for the first time since her father's death, Sif knows fear.

"Thórr!" she yells, the icy sliver of panic melting down her spine, pooling at her feet to swallow them whole. Loki and his brother have words that soon turn to fists, but her heartbeat is too loud in her ears for her to hear anything but the sound of his body hitting the dirt of the training grounds centuries ago, the elder prince's hand reaching out to her as she pulls him to his feet, the smile on his face, and Faðir, Faðir, she pleads, _forgive me_ Faðir, _for I have sinned._

She gives Frigg one last glance, the Queen's face marked with worry, but Sif turns her back on her Queen, her kingdom, on everything she never wanted enough to keep her from what she has become.

  
*

  
She finds them at the Bifröst, the ground shaking violently with the weight of Loki's crimes, her own, and all the things that have made them both what they are. The bróðir s are locked in a hurricane of teeth and lightning and blood, and when Sif arrives on a stolen stallion she leaps from its back, running to them as fast as her legs will take her.

The icy light of the Bifröst hurtles towards _Jötunheimr_ , cracking into the walls of the golden dome and its patterns are not unlike the Branches of the Great _Móðir_ , reaching out across the stars, creating and destroying and creating again, and Sif wonders if this is punishment for her pride, her want for glory and gold and Ásgarðr at her feet, her soul made and unmade and made again in Loki's image, born of the Waters like all who come from Yggdrasill to live and die and live again.

The warrior throws herself at the Thunder God, _Mjolnir_ in his hand and lightning on his tongue, but not before he swings, destroying the core of the Bifröst, the structure splintering into the darkness of Ásgarðr's watery edges. The impact reverberates through the glittering bridge, and it begins to break, threatening to take all of them with it. Loki's eyes are wide-eyed and weary, but even in the chaos she does not miss the surprise on his face.

 _That I have followed him here?_ she thinks, reaching for him as the edges of the bridge crumble, dragging him to his feet so they can escape the vortex that has taken the place of the falling Bifröst, straining against the shaking ground and the roaring of the waters beneath them, and perhaps it would not be so bad a fate to let the rushing current take them home. _There is nowhere for me to go except where he is, we are bound now by much more than blood and Mischief and War._

When she lifts her head, Thórr stands before them, the _Alföðr_ behind him, awakened from his slumber, and her father's words scream inside her head, dripping down her jaw, choking her, eating her whole.

_No matter how many times you fall, you must always get up._

Ásgarðr is before her, the Great _Móðir_ behind her.

_I want you to remember this when you are crowned in gold and blood and the world is at your feet._

Sif turns to Loki, his eyes splintered with stars, the vortex howling behind them.

They fall.

  
_grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight_  
_blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay_  
_rage, rage against the dying of the light_

 

The Branches of Yggdrasill are dim in the darkness of space, where there are no stars and the Nine Realms are far behind them. Sif does not know how much time has passed since their escape, only that even Loki has not walked these glittering paths of the Great _Móðir_ 's arms. The shimmering trails grow thinner, and Sif wonders how her feet still find footing when she can see through to the emptiness beneath her.

Before long the Branches cease to be, replaced by a staircase of stones that glow with an eerie blue light, drawing them in, and they have no choice but to climb them.

When they reach the top, Sif's eyes can make out the shape of a massive throne, coated in the same murky light, a figure seated upon it.

The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, the blue glow taints their eyes, burning brighter than the Branches ever have, and they walk.

**Author's Note:**

> notes after reveals, also might bump it up soon with some porn? i don't feel comfortable posting under an e rating lmao


End file.
